In online systems, such as social networks, online platforms, communication and networking sites and other systems and interfaces, which may be accessible via a network by a plurality of users and enable users to initiate and participate in a plurality of actions, users are typically allowed to rate other users or content. The ratings are typically processed and the overall score is presented to other users which are currently accessing a profile of the respective user or the content. For example, social networks allow users to directly rate other users or online content by assigning a value to the rated user or content, which is indicative of an appreciation of the user or content. The social network typically determines an overall rating score by considering the respective values of the ratings or a number of appreciations. The higher the values or appreciations, the higher the final rating of the respective user or content of the online system. Often, a higher rating is more desirable since it is linked to a higher quality, such as a valuable online content or a favoured active user having a close network with other users.
However, current approaches to rating do not take into consideration a linking effect or dependency of the different ratings related to content and its creator, which may, for example, refer to a quality in terms of being rated high or low. Hence, the creator could be rated very high, but all of his online content could be rated extremely low, or vice versa, without any interdependency of the respective ratings as it would be expected in real life.
In view of the above, one object is to improve the overall rating for users of online systems.